Tuesday 21st July 2015 Pont-à-Bar to Lumes. 9.81kms 2 locks

Mooring by sloping grassy bank at Pont-a-Bar

16.5° C Cloudy cool morning, but back to raging heat by mid-afternoon. A Danish yacht went down the canal towards the river at nine, followed a little later by péniche Spirit, then Cathares, on their way again back to work! We’d decided to have a few days at Lumes while we wait for a parcel to arrive, so we untied at 10.20 am and went up to the wide bit below Pont-à-Bar lock 6 to wind and then headed back down to lock 7 Meuse. Ran the washing machine directly via the new inverter without connecting up

Up to the lock to wind in the wide section below it 

the Markon (its 6.5Kw redundant now except for using the welder maybe). Mike lifted the pole to activate Meuse lock as I was changing washing loads. A crowd of cyclists paused on the bridge over the tail end of the lock to watch. A short distance downriver and we went down Dom-le-Mesnil lock, quiet, no gongoozlers. About 8kms to Lumes, going with the flow was slightly faster than going upriver, but we were going for maximum battery charging so we poodled along at about 6kph. We passed the first uphill boats on the first bend, two cruisers, one Dutch one German. Under the bridge at

Then down lock 7 Meuse on to the river again

Nouvion and the next pair went past on the bend below, a German yacht and a Belgian cruiser, both crews were filming us as we passed. Shortly after that two more cruisers went upriver making a huge wash that got the front deck mats wet. I put a second load of washing in the machine and used the electric kettle to make a cuppa (wow, getting to be like a house!!). It was 12.20pm when we arrived at Lumes, there was one pénichette hireboat (St Croix Piot) from Pont-à-Bar on the downstream end of the pontoon, and its English skipper came out to lend a hand. He said they were only

And back to the pontoon at Lumes for a couple of days on the river

staying for lunch and would be heading up to Verdun before they take the boat back. When they left we bow-hauled our boat to the end of the pontoon. Mike jokingly said as they passed us that he prefers the boats to land in front so they hit our bows not the stern. Those words came back to bite him a few hours later when a small Dutch cruiser clouted the fore end as it came in to moor in front of us. My new paint! They never said oops or sorry, so Mike went out to ask if they were damaged. No, they looked puzzled. He then said - oh your boat is steel, not wood, wooden boats get damaged hitting our boat. Sickly smiles. They said they were taking the boat back to the Netherlands for a friend and had seen our boat moored at Pont-à-Bar. Lunch. Getting much hotter again. The mooring soon filled up again, as the afternoon temperature soared to 39° C.